>Hazy Bookworm

>I want to blog, but am having trouble putting together a real post. For now, we’ll all have to be content with hazy thoughts that have floated through my mind this past week — all bookish, of course.

1. Determined to work on my Pulitzer challenge a little more this year, I started reading Angle of Repose (1971) by Wallace Stegner and I’m in book love again. Roll over, Robertson Davies and give Nick Hornby the news. What took me so long to discover this author? He’s like John Steinbeck with a bit of F. Scott Fitzgerald thrown in. Even better, when he was a lit professor, his specialty was the American realism/naturalism period: Twain, Garland, Wharton, Crane, Dreiser, Norris — many of my favorites. I must hit Kyobo bookstore next time I’m in Seoul and grab Stegner’s autobiographical novel, The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943). I’m a giddy bookworm; nothing pleases me more than discovering a past literary treasure.

2. Speaking of discovering fine authors from the past, I’m happier than ever that this seems to be my predisposition. Trish’s unpleasant encounter with a new author distressed me greatly — so much so, that if I had any inkling about reviewing new authors, all of that is gone now. It would be thrilling to discover some wonderful new talent all by my lonesome, but oh, well. Let other bloggers and critics and time sort them out.

3. I got curious about Mt. TBR and counted ’em up: 210unreadbooks! My library is flourishing, but it’s gonna get harder and harder to convince people that I’m a poor little expat in dire need of reading material. In addition, I guess it would be poor form to complain about having to move all those books! from Gumi to Seoul in a couple of months.